


Bullet in the chamber

by bitterbones



Series: Lockjaw Universe [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Alternate ending to chapter 13, F/M, Forgive Me, Lockjaw universe, Tragedy, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 18:09:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11788614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitterbones/pseuds/bitterbones
Summary: She can still hear the horde outside, shifting and moaning and hissing; dry, dead branches snapping beneath bloodied feet. Doom, death, decay; these are the only constants in this cruel world of theirs. Everything is pain.





	Bullet in the chamber

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Suicide
> 
> Link to fic this is based off of: [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10469694/chapters/23101998)

Rey rests her forehead against Kylo’s. He’s so feverish, his breath weak against her lips, eye flicking restlessly behind sallow lids. He has been through so much, seen so much more of this terror than she could possibly imagine. And now he has blood poisoning. He has blood poisoning and they are alone, lost deep in the woods somewhere. He will die. 

 

She can still hear the horde outside, shifting and moaning and hissing; dry, dead branches snapping beneath bloodied feet. Doom, death, decay; these are the only constants in this cruel world of theirs. Everything is pain. 

 

Kylo is going to die. 

 

Tears streak hot over her cheeks; silent and solemn. They have come so far together, and she has only just realized the depth of her feelings for him. But now she must give him up, let him go. Her one anchor to this world, the man who has kept her sane and grounded, who has saved her life more times than she can recall. 

 

She doesn’t notice when the sleeping bag she had been obscuring their bodies with slips away, falling weakly to the dust covered floor, exposing them to the windows of the derelict cabin and the decrepit swarm beyond. 

 

She does notice when an ungodly shriek splits the air, one of the lurking creatures peering in, dead eyed through the dirtied window. She is ice under its glassy stare. 

 

Gray eyes scan over the window, searching, hunting, but not truly seeing. Rey had been led to believe that they _couldn’t_ see; but here it was, trying. 

 

Other pallid, haggard faces join the first in the window, bloody, brutalized, inhuman. Each provides its own twisted feature to the grotesque picture framed by the window. They sniff and hiss and emit that bloodchilling, wet clicking sound in the backs of their throats. 

 

It’s only a matter of time before they see her; see them. This is how they will die. 

 

Her tears have ceased, such dread as that which courses viscous through her veins is beyond the realm of simple tears. She quivers under their eyes, like a mouse caught in the sights of a cat. Trapped. 

 

 _This is how they die_. 

 

After everything they’ve been through, this is where they meet their end; escaping disease and torture and death, only to perish here, so close to freedom and safety, so close to finally being _together_. 

 

Rey has an idea, an itch at the back of her mind; dark, morose, somber. 

 

She may die, but it will be in a manner of her own choosing. 

 

She still has the gun she had stolen from Wedge’s corpse during her escape, tucked tight in her waistband, pressing near painfully into her hip. Rey reaches for it beneath what little sleeping bag still covers them; slow, cautious not to move too quickly lest she further provoke the things that still twitch in the window. 

 

The grip is large, awkward in her small hands. She tries to control her shaking as she raises it slowly, and then ducks her head just enough to examine it like she hadn’t had time to while fleeing. 

 

It’s a revolver, a thing of deadly beauty, the wooden grip carved with an elegant flowing pattern. She traces the lines with her index finger, her lip curling when she hears one of the beasts outside snort in anticipation. They can wait for her to finish, like mongrels begging for a meal, their fingers scrape bloody over the thin pane of glass; still not quite comprehending what waits on the other side. 

 

Rey pops the cylinder, looking into the chamber and finding that there is only one bullet left. One bullet. Two desperate, dying people. 

 

It isn’t a hard choice to make. As weak as he is, as far away as his mind may be, Rey can’t stand the thought of Kylo suffering any longer. What he had endured at the prison is unimaginable to her. And what he had endured before that? Unthinkable.

 

She shudders to think of the journal that lays on the floor beside them, splayed open where she had dropped it. All of his darkest secrets laid bare across its yellowing pages. 

 

Tears find their way over her cheeks again, unbidden, white hot against her already flaming skin. She is quick as she pushes the cylinder back into place with a mechanical _click_ , and forces the hammer back with her thumb. She grips it tight, though her tremor is apparent in the way the barrel of the revolver quavers where it touches his temple. 

 

She bends forward, no longer bothering with caution, indifferent to the confirming belows of the beasts outside. Uninterested as they smash papery, flailing limbs through the glass, uncaring as they pound hard against the door, causing the aging wood to splinter. 

 

Rey needs this, this final moment with him, this man who has become everything to her. 

 

She presses her chapped lips over his own, tasting blood on him; a remnant of his torture. When she pulls back she stares down at him for a long, somber moment, taking him to memory; his pale skin, his too-full lips and large nose, the mole that rests perpendicular to his left nostril. He looks so peaceful in his fever induced sleep, at ease for the first time since she has met him. 

 

“I love you, Kylo,” her breath ghosts over his face, stirring his hair, “ _More than anything_.” 

 

The door will give way soon, she can hear the hinges creaking, the frame splintering where they bear down on it. 

 

“I’m sorry.” 

 

She pulls the trigger. 

 

She doesn’t feel the pain in her palm as she drops the weapon, doesn’t so much as look up when the creatures come spilling in, shambling and screaming, like water over a dam, spurred on by the piercing bang of a single gunshot. All that matters is the body which she cradles to her chest, the breathless lips which she presses to her own one final time. 

 

It was all worth it, _everything was worth it_ , to have met this man. 

 

Everything is pain. 

 

They are upon her.

**Author's Note:**

> Welp. I was bitten by the tragedy bug that so often plagues me, and I gave it life. I've kind of been in a rut again with my writing, and this helped to bring me out of it. 
> 
> Keep in mind that this is an alternate ending, and doesn't fall into the canon of the Lockjaw story. 
> 
> Please do tell me what you think; comments really do help to motivate me. <3
> 
> Tumblr: [oscarius](https://oscarius.tumblr.com) I take prompts now ;)


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